He thinks that he opines when he thinks that a connexion, though
actually so, may quite easily be otherwise; for he believes that
such is the proper object of opinion, while the necessary is the
object of knowledge.
In what sense, then, can the same thing be the object of both
opinion and knowledge? And if any one chooses to maintain that all
that he knows he can also opine, why should not opinion be
knowledge? For he that knows and he that opines will follow the same
train of thought through the same middle terms until the immediate
premisses are reached; because it is possible to opine not only the
fact but also the reasoned fact, and the reason is the middle term; so
that, since the former knows, he that opines also has knowledge.
The truth perhaps is that if a man grasp truths that cannot be other
than they are, in the way in which he grasps the definitions through
which demonstrations take place, he will have not opinion but
knowledge: if on the other hand he apprehends these attributes as
inhering in their subjects, but not in virtue of the subjects'
substance and essential nature possesses opinion and not genuine
knowledge; and his opinion, if obtained through immediate premisses,
will be both of the fact and of the reasoned fact; if not so obtained,
of the fact alone.
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